


Supermarket Sweep

by dewinter



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 09:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15240837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dewinter/pseuds/dewinter
Summary: Rest and recuperation, and the entire contents of a small Repino supermarket.





	Supermarket Sweep

**Author's Note:**

> Long time no see, football fandom. I don't know anything about a) Spurs or b) Russian snacks; apologies for inaccuracies in either department.

“Okay, Delboy, let’s see what you’ve got.” He’s cross legged on Dele’s bed – they’ve repaired back to his room rather than Eric’s because Dele’s is marginally closer to the lift.

Dele grins, and upends his plastic bag onto the duvet.

“Nice, nice,” Eric says, running a hand over the various packages and boxes. “Gone down the savoury route, I see. Wanna talk me through your thought process?”

“Nah, I wanna eat. Show us yours then.”

Eric makes a great show of pulling his wares out of the bag one at a time, lining them up in a neat row in front of his knees. Dele rolls his eyes, and nudges what looks like a tube of wafers out of line with his index finger.

“Where’d Raheem go, anyway?”

Eric shrugs. He’d been right behind them jogging back up the steps to the hotel, and they’d promptly lost him between the lobby and the lift.

“His stuff was rubbish anyway. Much rather tuck into this lot.” His eyes gleam as he looks at Eric’s purchases.

Eric spreads his hands over his supermarket haul. “Hands off, dickhead. I chose this stuff special.”

Dele snatches a packet of dry-looking cakes. “Yeah, really special,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Eric swings his legs off the bed and makes for the door.

“Come back here, bro,” Dele says. “Stop taking everything so personal.”

“Nah, I’m just –” Eric pokes his head out into the corridor. It’s empty of nutritionists, trainers, or, crucially, Harry, who worships the ground the dieticians walk on, is taking captain’s duties a shade too seriously, in Eric’s view, and moreover is entirely incapable of keeping a secret. “Right, no one about. You go first.”

Dele needs no encouragement. He rips open the packet of cakes and scarfs one down without noticeably chewing. He pauses, shrugs, and holds the packet out to Eric.

Eric follows suit, albeit with a bit more grace. Dele watches him as he chews and swallows. Dele’s rocking back and forth slightly – even though they spent the morning stretching and recovering, they’re all still wired and jumpy from last night.

“Alright, innit?” Dele prompts.

Eric shrugs. “Just like – bit like a jaffa cake or whatever. Thought it’d be a bit – “

“Your go,” Dele says, bored of the introspection. He rustles a hand through his packages invitingly. Eric laughs. That’s just the way it is, the status quo. He’s around Dele – ergo, he’s laughing. It’s been the case since day one. There’s just something inherently funny about him.

Eric strokes his chin grandly while pretending to agonise, then pulls a packet from the pile. Their sojourn in the supermarket was nothing short of shambolic, Raheem insistent he had an app on his phone that could translate images of Cyrillic, the harassed shop assistants making no headway with hand gestures, and Dele playing the fool with the vegetables, as usual. God only knows what they’ve come away with.

“Looks gross,” Eric says mulishly, waving the open packet at Dele for his inspection. The contents is spindly and brittle, vaguely like coral. It smells of the sea, too, briny and fetid. There are no clues on the packet.

“You picked it, Diet. Get it in you.”

Eric picks a reassuringly small piece, and gnaws on it carefully. It’s salty and a little chewy, and really quite tasty. “S’alright, you know. Might be, like, dried fish, I reckon. Want some?”

“I do not, Eric Dier,” Dele says solemnly. “Fuckin – dried fish. No. Thank. You.” He’s already got his hands on a packet of dumplings. Eric knows they’re dumplings because they’re _everywhere_ here _,_ and they sell them in the freezer section of the corner shop he sometimes pops into on the way back from Fortnite shifts at Dele’s.

“Sweet or savoury?” he asks as Dele’s about to open his mouth.

Dele pauses with the dumpling halfway to his mouth. He scrutinises the packet. “Reckon that’s an apple or a mushroom?” He turns the packet over and squints at the ingredients on the back. “Nah, s’all in Russian.”

“Suck it and see, eh Del?”

Dele grins at him and bites the dumpling in two. There’s a split second before his face changes, screwing up in disgust.

“Is it minging?”

Dele spits the half-chewed dumpling none too elegantly into his palm. “Yeuch – pretty sure you’re meant to –” he peers at the uneaten half “—yeah, that’s – it’s raw.”

Eric rolls about laughing.

“Yo, don’t know what you’re laughing at, big man,” Dele says. “I get food poisoning and we’re all fucked. Boss’ll have to start you. Lumbering about. Modric’ll go right through you.”

Eric throws a piece of dried whatever-it-is at him. From anyone else, that’d have stung. From Dele, it’s almost affectionate. That’s the joke – _I’m always carrying you – you’re always carrying me._ It doesn’t get old. Probably won’t, as long as they’re still on the same side to squabble over the details. As long as. The closest football gets to a promise.

“Stop getting bits all over my bed,” Dele says, fussing over the duvet.

“Just have to move into mine then, won’t you?”

“Couldn’t pay me, mate,” Dele says, helping himself to another cake. “Couldn’t even pay me.”

That’s another joke – even if it’s on thinner ice. _The thought of being close to you is physically repulsive –_ when really, there’s nothing more comfortable than the space between their bodies, the space that’s always shrinking, that might as well not exist at all, nowadays.

“Go in with H, then, see if I care.”

Dele pretends to consider it. “Reckon he’d do you a boiled egg in the morning?”

“He’d cut your soldiers for you and everything.”

“Hashtag Harry Kane would.”

Eric grins. He keeps waiting for the wave to break, for the nausea and the fear to swoop down onto him, for the furrow in his brow to deepen. For Dele to go quiet. It should be stifling. They should be buckling under the pressure – that’s what they do, isn’t it? Buckle. Crumble. Disappoint. Instead he’s sitting cross-legged on his best mate’s bed, eating snacks and taking the piss – it might be just another Sunday, might even be London. Not thousands of miles, and a semi-final to play in three days.

Dr Grange would tell him to ask Dele how he’s feeling, probably. That’s not what they do, though. They rib and rile – and somehow out of the jostling mix of machismo and affection that they fell into three years ago, and never left, comes – something. It’s not something there’s words for. The feeling of being lifted up, and kept on the ground, at the same time. Half like family, and half not. No need for probing questions or intimate conversations. _Ain’t broke,_ Eric thinks. _Don’t try and fix it._

Dele’s offering him a biscuit from a new packet, stuffing one into his own mouth. “ _Yes,_ Eric Dier,” he says, muffled through the crumbs. “ _Finally_ a quality purchase from the substitute.”

Eric rolls his eyes. “Give it here.” There’s a vein of chocolate sauce through the biscuit – and it’s that, as much as the thought of the look on the nutritionist’s face, that makes him savour it on his tongue.

“I’ve played a blinder, Delboy,” he says, nodding. “I’ve gone and smashed it.”

Dele dips his head in an elaborate bow. “Suppose you have to be useful for something.”

Eric scowls.

“C’mere,” Dele says, beckoning. “Look at you, never learn how to eat proper?” He thumbs at the corner of Eric’s mouth, and Eric doesn’t jerk away. Why would he? It’s just Dele, tidying him up, or trying to rattle him, or else just pushing a little further at the barriers they pretend to understand – whichever one, Eric’s fine with it. There’s not much he’s not fine with, when it comes to Dele.

Dele licks the smear of chocolate from his thumb, and Eric’s fine with that, too. This - it’s whatever he wants it to be. It’s not like they spend ages staring into each other’s eyes, week in, week out. It’s just. It’s funny – like how he knows it’s going to be okay on Wednesday, whatever happens, win or lose. Same with – whatever the hell this is. He knows, somehow, without having to have some big soul-baring _conversation_ about it, that whatever he wants is fine. Go to the bathroom and wash his face properly, or tell Dele to fuck off, he can clean himself, or just – just grab him and stick his tongue in his mouth, see if he still tastes of raw dumpling – it’s all good. He’s not sure if that’s Dr Grange talking, or if it goes further back.

The door opens, and Rash and Jesse pile in, bickering.

“Bro. _Bro,_ ” Jesse’s saying, and Rash is giggling. There goes the _stick his_ _tongue in his mouth_ option, Eric thinks, watching Dele instinctively pull his stash of snacks closer to his body. It’s probably no bad thing. They’ve got Wednesday to think about, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> A few of the England boys [went shopping](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk-eQAglG9V/) on Sunday after the quarter-final win. When asked what he'd bought, Eric Dier was [pretty coy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNw-HrnfRnU).


End file.
